Hunger Hurts But Starving Works
by Aria Ilia
Summary: Cameron has always had her troubles, and her family life wasn't great as a kid. She cares too much, and she has her own inner pain. Food used to be comfort to her, but then it turned to her enemy, and even though she tried to escape, she never really has.
1. The Collapse

Author's Note: The italicised lines are lyrics taken from assorted songs. They are not all from the same song, and I just wanted to explain that ahead of time. I will use italics for thoughts in coming chapters, although that should be obvious anyway. I will try to create a plausible story about Cameron and her developing anorexia and struggle with it. I've done plenty of research and am currently struggling with it myself, so I would hope that it would be plausible, as well as in character. I think there is enough in her character overall that could give plausibility to it. After this prologue sort of chapter, there won't be lyrics, most likely.-Aria Ilia-

She was a doctor. She should have known better. She did know better, in all actually. But she couldn't stop herself. 

_I don't care if it hurts, I wanna have control, I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul_

She was amazed that she'd kept it a secret for so long. It had started back in college. Actually, once again, she knew better. It had been lurking since she was young, but it got its chance to show up in college. And then it had started to eat away at her life. Hah, eat. That was a laugh.

_Imperfect cry and scream in ecstasy, so what befalls the flawless, look what I've built, it shines so beautifully, now watch as it destroys me_

She could trace it back to her earliest memories. She remembered being three years old, watching her mother sitting at the kitchen table, fingers pressed to her temples. Her mother had a headache. She crept over quietly to touch her mother's shoulder, to wrap her arms around her mother's waist and hug, and hold on. Her mother pushed her away, terse. "Allison, I have a headache. Go watch some television or something." Her mother turned to look at her, her expression sharp.

Cameron had crept away quietly. She'd gone to her room, curled up, and felt the isolation wash over her. She felt alone and rejected and no good, because she couldn't make her mother feel better. That was the first memory she had of it, of the precursor of it, and one of the first memories she had of anything.

_Hunger hurts but starving works when it costs too much to love_

It had played a part all through her development. She wanted to be loved, she wanted to save people, to care for them, to make them smile, to be a perfect little girl. She was silent a lot of the time, trying to really hear them, not just listen, to see them and hear them and understand them. But her need to love and care and be so perfect was destructive. Simultaneous with those things was an uncertainty, a fear of failure, and because of those two factors, everything she did, she questioned. Every word, every action, every smile or glare or sad expression from another person was taken and analysed, peered between the cracks, found the underlying, hidden message it could hold. She found it, even if it was irrational.

If she tried to tell someone sad to cheer up, because good things will happen to good people, and they smiled at her and said thank you, instead of taking that as it were, at six years old, she instead found it to be them telling her, "Don't be so stupid. You're six years old, what could you know of life?" Their smile was a lie, a false expression to placate her.

It was irrational, but it also was wedged so deeply in her mind that she couldn't help it. It started out weak, and grew. By the time she was 11, she analysed everything, and almost always found the inbetween truth, whether it be actual truth or the lies that only she could find.

_You make the sound of laughter and sharpened nails seem softer, and I need you now somehow_

By the time she was ten, she was lost in her own head. She had friends, but she was still teased by people. She was shy around boys, and somewhat socially awkward at times. Such a volatile time, that age was. She had done a very stupid thing and decided to cut her hair short, into a pixie cut. She was basing it off her best friend's look. Instead, she looked like a boy. She cried for days when she was teased by even her friends, although most of them were only joking. Most of them. 

The next year, it got worse. Her hair was finally growing out, down to about her jaw. She'd found a way of styling it that it was at least somewhat cute. However, puberty had decided to hit that summer, and her breasts had shown up, her period had arrived ((embarrassingly while she was at the beach, lounging around, until her mother had urgently dragged her off to the bathroom and yanked down her bathing suit to discover the red stain upon the fabric)), and she had put on some weight on the hips, the butt, the thighs, the stomach, everywhere, it appeared.

Brian Billick, one of the more popular boys in school, decided to begin to flirt with her. She was eleven, in sixth grade, and in over her head. With sandy brown hair and bright green eyes, she was enamored, even if he was skinny and not at all like the handsome men that her mother longed for on TV. Granted, Cameron herself had no interest in them yet. As it turned out, Brian had just broken up with Laura Hennerson, and Laura was not in a good mood about it. Before the end of the week was through, Cameron was practically the most mocked, unpopular girl in school, and Laura was back with Brian. Vicious lies about Cameron had circulated. Her mother was insane, her father was an alcoholic, Cameron was a dyke, Cameron had tried to kill herself, and Cameron thought that Laura was ugly. All those started by Laura herself led to Cameron being mocked and hated.

_In my head the flesh seems thicker, sandpaper tears corrode the filth, and I need you now somehow_

Cameron began to turn to food in order to quell her depression. Bad test grade, go home and curl up and eat some Cheetos. Mother or father yell at her, a bowl of ice cream would do the trick. Complete loneliness, feeling stupid and unloved and a failure, and go to your room with potato chips, cookies, some reheated pizza, a soda, and eat until the stomach hurt, and then eat some more until it was all gone.

She gained more weight. At five foot three, she weighed 150 pounds at age 12. When she went for a physical before entering junior high, her pediatrician informed her mother that "although it isn't really too much of an issue and might just be weight gained during puberty, Allison is currently slightly overweight". Her mother had nodded but not been worried, since the doctor hadn't seemed worried. Cameron tried not to worry too much, but the fact that she wore a size ten and any pants that were double digits were, in her opinion, worn by girls who were overweight. Even an eight was dangerous. That was borderline heavy. Six or four was good.

But still, although she wanted to lose weight, her love affair with food was still there. She started to exercise, but every few days came the retreat into her room with some sort of sweet, a brownie she'd bought from the bakery on her way home, or something else that dulled the pain inside her. She managed to at least regulate her weight, and lost a few pounds, but she still remained in that ten.

_Oh, give me a reason to be beautiful, so sick in this body, so sick in this soul_ She went to her first junior high dance a month into the school year. It was the annual Bonfire Dance, where you arrived at seven, and at ten, everyone went outside behind the school and watched as the bonfire was lit. She went, wearing a red dress that she and her mother had gone shopping for. It was a spaghetti strap dress that fell to just past her knees, with a slit along both sides to about halfway along her thighs. She wore matching red sandals, and hung out with the few friends that she had still managed to retain from Laura's vicious attack the year before.

The dance began, and she hung out with her friends, and she danced with them to some songs, feeling strange in the social situation, and watched as one by one, people, her friends included, began to pair off with their dates or possible romantic interests, and she hung back against the wall, watching as one dance after another went by, couples shyly wrapping their arms around each other and swaying to the music.

She was elated when Rich Abrow came along and asked her to dance. He wasn't the most popular boy around, but he at least was nice enough to her at times. She settled her arms around his neck, and his came to rest low on her hips, almost on her butt. She felt even more uncomfortable, but didn't ask him to stop, because she didn't want to screw up. She should have, because about a minute later, he let out a loud whoop, causing many to turn as he yanked up enough of her dress, the slits aiding him, to reveal her panties.

She screamed and jerked away, and watched as he got pulled out of the gym, and noted the following Monday that he got a suspension for his actions, but it was too late, because now everyone had seen her underwear and she'd been mortified in public. She found out later that Laura had put him up to it. It seemed that Laura's viciousness was never going to end.

_I swear, I said, I fit right in, I fight right in your perfect skin, I cannot breathe_

She knew that she would never be perfect, but she also knew she couldn't stop trying to be. She stopped flirting with boys, however, because it seemed futile, now that Laura had pretty much secured her as the most mocked girl in school. Sure, a few boys came up to try and grab her ass, and taunt her, but when she asked her best friend to ask as many boys as she could what they thought of her, the general response was, "She's not really that cool, and she doesn't even have tits or anything, so there's no reason why I'd even think about her." 

She'd heard about teens who cut because they were upset. Under the lunch table one day, curious, she dug her nail into the back of her hand, ran it back and forth a few times, pulled her hand out, and stared at the red line. Jarred, a boy who generally sat with her and her friends but she didn't care for, due to his judgemental nature, glanced over. "What's that?" He asked. She shrugged. He rolled his eyes. "You're always so depressed, and now there's that welt on your hand. If you start cutting, I hope they find out and throw you in the loony bin."

Her hands slid under the table again and her nail bit into her palm this time, drawing lines across it.

She would graduate to a needle before the end of the week, upset with herself for nearly failing an art test, but it wasn't her fault that she couldn't draw very well. She came home, stole a needle from her mother's sewing basket, and went in her room. She only made one scratch, along her upper arm. She didn't want to draw attention to her wrists. That was too evident. She only scratched the needle across her skin once, and watched as a few droplets of blood welled to the surface. Her mother never asked what it was, and if she had, Cameron would have replied that she got scratched by a tree branch outside during gym class.

_They say in the end you'll get better just like them and they steal your heart away_

But eventually, her cutting got more frequent. She managed to rip her nail jagged enough to actually create scratches on her upper arm, and her mother saw them. "Who did this?" She asked. Cameron replied that one of her friends had gotten annoyed and attacked Cameron. It made sense, actually. One of her friends was abused by her mother, and it made Cameron feel guilty that she was injuring herself because she was upset, when her friend was getting beaten by her mother on an almost daily basis. And her friend did get annoyed and hit people, attack them. Cameron didn't really like that, but she wanted to help out so she tried to be supportive. "Well, if she does it again, you stop talking to her." Her mother replied.

Cameron slipped up, though. She made five jagged scratches across her wrists one day, completely upset. She wore longsleeve shirts for a couple days, because it was beginning to go from fall to late fall, but one day, in her pjyamas, she stumbled downstairs, and forgot that she was wearing a tank top. Her mother glanced over as Cameron ate her breakfast and grabbed her wrist, causing eggs to fall to the floor. "What the hell is this?" Her mother glared at her. "Why are all these scratches appearing on you lately?"

"The cat did it." Cameron replied defensively. "We were playing and she scratched me." But the lines looked nothing like cat scratches, and her mother continued to glare.

"If I see any more of these cuts, I'm going to put you in a mental hospital." Her mother warned. That had scared Cameron enough to stop. But not for long. She just learned new ways to protect herself. She lasted through junior high, one more year, and then entered high school. She was five foot six now, and 163 pounds. She was supposed to go to the first homecoming dance of her life with a boy named Chris. He wasn't too popular, but he wasn't unpopular either. She'd known him since they were in second grade, and he was nice to her, usually. She was cautious, remembering Rich.

When she got to the dance, he was there waiting for her, and she shyly smiled at him, approaching. She wore a pale blue dress with a band of shimmering fake jewels across the waist, and he was dressed in a tuxedo, looking very attractive to her. She'd done her hair in a twist that curved around her neck and fell over one shoulder, and she was wearing a light application of lipstick and lipgloss, a faint shadowing of pale blue powder on her eyelids. He complimented her, told her that she looked really pretty.

Before the dance was over, she felt the courage to ask him out. But he stared at her. "Oh. Uhm. Allison, I only asked you as a friend, and really, because Katie told me that you weren't going to have anyone to go with." Katie was a friend of a friend, not someone she generally talked to, but had said hi to and chatted with a couple times. She knew that Katie and Chris were really good friends. "In fact, I'm kinda hoping that in doing this, maybe she'll like me. I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "No, it's alright." She retreated to the bathroom, cried, and waited for her mother to come pick her up. She went upstairs to her room after the dance, pulled out the needle that she'd hidden, and then lifted her breast up, drew the needle underneath it several times, leaving a red line of blood as she went. She put on her bra and tee-shirt, a pair of pjyama pants, and curled up in her bed.

_Fighting for the smallest goal, to get a little self-control_

She'd done that a few more times throughout high school, although it had been fairly rare. She did it under her breasts, or on her kneecaps, or thighs, somewhere that wasn't commonly seen. She wondered if her mother ever noticed scratches that she really got by accident, if her mother then wondered if she was cutting herself again. That was what kept her from doing it too often, the fear of being discovered.

But since her outlet for pain had to be channeled in other ways, it began to develop through her weight again. She was still a ten, although even those were getting tight now, and so she began to stop eating as much. She would go several days without eating more than a thousand calories a day, and exercise for hours at a time, and then break down and eat again, wolfing down her beloved snacks and completely ruining her diet. Her inability to do anything but worry about what people were thinking about her at the time, her inability to be perfect and take care of everyone and make them happy only aided in this cycle. But it never got too serious, and usually this only happened every few months for maybe a week, and then it would fade away.

She made it through high school intact, although she strongly suspected that it was only because she did have her parents watching over her, and if she'd done anything too extreme, they would have intervened. She was recovering though, in her issues with being perfect. Sort of. She wanted to be thin, she wanted to be perfect, but she at least was able to stop analysing everything people said. Usually she just thought that they were seeing her and thinking she was fat. She could believe that maybe they thought her a nice girl, just heavy.

She went to college, and gained another ten pounds by the end of the first semester. She was into size twelves now, and she was almost breaking down over it. She came home with an A, two Bs, and two Cs as her final grades. Her parents were upset that she hadn't gotten higher for the two classes with Cs. She'd honestly tried, but the classes were hard. She'd almost had a B in one of them, but the last test was insane.

It got worse when her mother's thyroid began to act up. Even though Cameron knew that the thyroid was what made her testy all the time, the frequent phone calls from her mother yelling at Cameron about anything and everything really got to her, and she began to feel as if she was worthless again, selfish, and of course, fat. She needed to lose that extra weight.

_Left selfish and hungry so feed me to pain, escape reality with new pain then let the cycle start again_

By the time the end of the semester came, Cameron had lost somewhere around thirty pounds. She was now considered in a healthy weight range, but she was still in a size 8 pants, and even then, sometimes she couldn't get into that. It wasn't good enough. Over the summer, she managed to exercise, but her parents were making her eat three meals a day.

Back in college, she'd reduced her meals to one time a day and had a restriction of no more than 750 calories a day, plus plenty of exercise. She was allowed a small snack at night if she got really hungry, but that was it. She only lost a few more pounds over the summer. She refused to purge. She knew that she wouldn't be able to get away with it, because her parents would find out somehow.

When she got back to college, she began her regime again. But this time, she did start to purge. She dropped to around 130, weight fluctuating slightly above or below, but she was still in the healthy range for her weight. Healthy, yeah, right. If only people knew that she was alternating between eating once a day, obsessively exercising, and then the next day, eating and throwing up, eating an hour later, throwing up, eating and forcing herself to keep it down, even though she'd eaten too much, and then passing out, exhausted.

By the end of college, she'd managed to drop down to 114. That was just barely out of the healthy range for her. She moved into an apartment, began to look for jobs, and eventually ended up working for House. But just because her life was in order on the outside didn't mean anything. She was still in turmoil on the inside. She was falling for House, she was watching people die because she couldn't save them, and she was still completely obsessed with her weight. She managed to maintain her weight for a while, and even gained a few pounds back, because she felt guilty. She was a doctor, and she was the unhealthy one starving herself to be thin while other people were dying. But just because she gained weight didn't mean anything.

She managed to gain some weight back, and in fact, began to look less than sickly thin, which several people had remarked to her one day. She went from wearing size twos to wearing size 6s. But then they started to get tight. And she got scared.

_And you're my obsession, I love you to the bones, and Ana wrecks your life_


	2. The Descent

_March 1st_

She was up to 141. She'd done so well for herself, getting down to a size two, which was even better than thin, but now Cameron had screwed up. She tugged on a pair of pants, size six, and found that although she buttoned them, a bit of skin peeked over the edge and bulged away. "Disgusting." She muttered. It was her own fault. She went out with Foreman and Chase too much, where she was forced to eat normally for the most part, and her guilt had led her to force herself to eat things she liked.

_Have some pizza_, her brain had cooed to her as she sat in the restaurant. _Split it with them, have a few pieces_. Or the next night at home, craving now the foods she'd longed to eat for so long and had denied herself. _Tonight, why don't you go ahead and make yourself a dinner of chicken parmesian_. That was one thing about Cameron. She loved cheese. Dairy was undeniably the most delicious food group and pizza the most delicious food.

Well, she'd go on a diet now, just a bit. It wouldn't hurt. She'd just get herself down to those size six. Vanity reasons, after all. A size eight wasn't fat, no, or even a ten. There were plenty of women who wore pants in those sizes, and they weren't fat. But now that she'd gotten down to a two, she didn't really want to get up to an eight or ten. She would stay at a six because she'd gotten down to the six, which she knew was thin, had gotten to the four, and had reached the two.

Plus, an eight or ten meant she was fat. Some women could carry that size and look thin. She couldn't.

Her diet would be easy enough. She would only eat 1,200 calories and she would make sure that she exercised an extra twenty minutes at night.

She headed for the kitchen and grabbed an apple. 70 calories, she noted. She grabbed a granola bar on top of that. 90 calories, she noted, proud that she'd at least remained buying healthy food, even if she had gained weight. So there was 160 calories. She would allow only that much because after that, she was down to 500 calories for lunch and dinner. She could probably eat some white rice and maybe a half a chicken breast fillet. That was around 210 calories. That was good, because then she'd have almost 800 calories left for dinner.

It did not occur to her that she was falling back into bad habits. It did not occur to her at all, because she believed that every woman dieted and that 1,200 calories was plenty, and it wasn't like she was starving herself at all. Hell, even at her worse, she'd never really been starving herself. She'd eaten very little, yes, and exercised, but she wasn't starving herself in a mad attempt to get so skinny that she would die. She just wanted to get slim.

At least, that's what she told herself, because that was either than facing the truth that she had in fact been trying to get as thin as possible, and had she not been hired by House, she'd apt have kept losing weight, losing weight, down to 94, down to 86, down to 81, and then, oh no, I'm dead. She'd never been bulimic, though, and so because of that, she could pretend she'd been marginally normal.

She took a bite of the granola bar, took another, ate it slowly. She wanted to try and let herself get full by eating slowly. She wasn't running late, so she could afford to take a little more time than usual. She cut the apple up into half, then cut that in half, half again, and then carved out the seeds. She took the knife and carved it in half one last time and picked up a slice of the apple, biting into it and letting the golden and red tinted skin split.

After she'd finished her meal, she brushed her teeth, pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and then slid into her shoes and a light jacket. She drove to the hospital, listening to the radio and humming along. The drive went fast, and she parked and headed to the hospital main doors. As she entered, she familiarised herself to the hustle and bustle, heading through the halls and dodging fast moving nurses. She ran into Foreman on the way there. "Hey." He said. "House wants us. He's got a five year old patient who has a rash and skin lumps, and no apparent reason why. Her mother came in, saying she had the flu, and the girl passed out on the floor in front of him."

Cameron followed Foreman, hurrying into the room. No sooner were they there that Chase entered the room. "Bad news, guys. She just had a seizure. Once again, there's no apparent reason for why she had this seizure." "Yes there is," House said, swinging into the room. "Febrile seizure. Her fever came out of nowhere, apparently. When her mother brought her in, she told me that her temperature that morning was 99.8. When we took her temperature after the seizure, it was 103.8. So. What might this be?"

"Well, it could just be the flu." Chase said. "I mean, maybe she does have the flu and we overreacted to the seizure and the heat spike."

"Maybe." House said. "But I doubt it." He shot the sarcastic retort at Chase and Chase made a face. Cameron spent the day alternatively checking up on the girl, Sophie, with Chase and Foreman.

It only took a few hours before Cameron's stomach started growling. She headed to get lunch, and bought what she had originally planned, rice and chicken. She didn't eat it all, and after she got home for the night, she made herself a dinner of pasta and carrots. She checked the diet book that she had on top of her fridge. She'd eaten no more than 250 calories for dinner, and added in breakfast and dinner. She'd eaten barely more than 600 calories. She was still hungry, and she'd eaten only half of what she'd originally planned to.

She felt as if she was doing something wrong by not eating more, especially since 1,200 calories was definitely a low number to eat, since 900 calories was a starvation diet. She was still hungry in a way, and so she drank two large glasses of water. She headed to bed, turned out the light, and crashed to avoid the hunger that would surely hit.

March 2nd

Cameron woke up the next morning and sure enough, her stomach was growling at her furiously. She ignored it and went into the kitchen. She pulled out two eggs and scrambled them. 200 calories. She had practically memorised every nutritional label on the foods she ate, to check nutritional calories so that she didn't eat too much, didn't get too much fat or sodium or carbs.

She headed off to work, finding that Sophie had gotten worse, her lymph glands swelling and arthritis showing up in her joints. They still weren't able to figure it out until almost the end of the day. Still's Disease. It was a form of juvenile arthritis. There wasn't much they could do. Hopefully, the fever and the other symptoms would disappear within a few months, but the disease would carry on into adulthood. However, they were busy most of the day, and Cameron ended up skipping lunch. She was starving by the time she got home. She had no clue what to eat, though.

She glanced around her freezer. She ended up making herself steak, a baked potato, and a piece of garlic bread, but she didn't eat all of it. She did some mental calculations. She'd eaten around 750 calories that day. She really wasn't aware that she'd fallen back into so many of the habits that she'd had back in college. She'd never really admitted to herself that she had an eating disorder, either. She thought that she was on an extreme diet. Not an eating disorder. She still didn't think she had an eating disorder. It never crossed her mind.

She headed to exercise, working out for a full hour instead of forty-five minutes, and then giving herself a few minutes to cool off. She took a quick shower, wiping off the sweat, washing her hair, drying it. She would style it in the morning. She cleaned up around the house and then headed to her room, turning on the TV. She watched the news for a while, and then closed her eyes. But now she couldn't sleep. Her mind was getting occupied.

Food was on her mind. She'd eaten way too much that night. The garlic bread was unneccessary and the butter on the potato could have been avoided. She could have exercised a bit more, and because she couldn't sleep, she got up and began to walk. She didn't want to run, and get sweaty again, but she paced her room back and forth, avoiding the kitchen, because if she headed to the kitchen, she would start to eat the cookies that she knew were in the cabinet. But she caved, and hurried to the kitchen.

Then a funny thing happened. She took the cookies out and grabbed one, put it in her mouth, chewed, swallowed. She took a second one, and realised that she didn't want it. The idea of the food was disgusting to her. She had forgotten that feeling. She'd had it back in college, but she'd managed to pretend that she was just not getting enough sleep so she was nauseated, or she had a cold, or the greasy scent of the food made her sick to her stomach. She was cranky, and so she was in a bad mood about everything was another popular excuse.

She headed back to her room, suddenly comforted. She was hungry but she didn't want to eat. She wanted to be thin. She felt strong now that she had defeated her urge to eat. She lay down in bed again, and drifted off. She woke with a start the next day and weighed herself. She'd dropped two pounds already. She was proud of herself. 139. Back into the 30s. She'd lose just a bit more weight.

March 6th

Cameron had completely cut out lunch at this point. She ate something light for breakfast, no more than 200 calories, skipped lunch, came home starving after work, and then usually ate something. Usually her something came to no more than six hundred calories, if that. Tonight was only three fifty. She'd come home and gone to look at herself in the mirror. She'd dropped four pounds, and was at 137 now. She pinched her stomach lightly. She could grab too much. If it could stick out over her jeans, then it was too much. She could afford to tone. She would add another fifty sit-ups to her exercise routine from now on.

She turned around and examined her butt in the mirror. Too big. Chase had loved it when they'd slept together, running his hands over her butt, squeezing, but now, she felt a shudder that he would touch them. So absolutely gross. It wasn't toned enough. She needed to lose some weight so that she could tone it up. Her thighs were the same. Even for all the walking she did, she ate so much unhealthy food sometimes that she couldn't help but gain weight, obviously. Plus, she had made herself gain weight since she felt so bad being too thin.

But once again, it was never an eating disorder. It was a diet, an excessive diet, and that's why she had gone off it. She was okay now. She just needed to tone up a bit. She grasped under her upper arms. There was skin she could grab, and she should have it firm, muscular. Oh yeah, she definitely needed to exercise more. She needed to lose weight.

She inspected her body for a few more minutes, poking at skin that needed to be less flabby, at body parts that needed to be smaller, at herself, getting overweight again, and she couldn't do that.

She began to panic. She needed to lose more weight to get rid of all that extra skin and fat. She had to exercise because she didn't want to look like this much longer. She couldn't believe that she hadn't noticed it sooner. Maybe because she'd been trying to ignore it as she tried to eat regularly. That had clearly backfired. 

Time to exercise for sure.

She headed to her treadmill and turned it on, warming up only for a few minutes before turning it on to a faster pace, and then faster a few minutes later. She forced herself to keep running as she tired, knowing that if she ignored it, she would eventually stop feeling tired and instead, just go numb as she ran. And then after she ran, she would do some sit-ups and leg lifts and weight lifts for her arms.

She lost track of time as she exercised, going from running for a half-hour to running for fifty minutes, and then dropping to the ground to do a hundred sit-ups and doing one hundred and fifty instead. Her leg lifts, usually thirty on each side and then both legs on her back was upped to seventy-five, and her arm exercises, which she rarely did, were a hundred per arm in three different ways.

She finally collapsed into bed at two-thirty in the morning, knowing she had to awaken in four hours.

March 9th

Cameron was exhausted. She'd been averaging no more than five hours of sleep since that first night of compulsive exercising. She was doing that every night. Sincen then, she'd lost another two and a half pounds. She was down to 134.6, actually. She was feeling good. The pants were fitting again, but now she was going to get to 130, just to make sure that she didn't get like this again. There was no way she'd ever be this fat again.

It was starting to show, her lack of sleep, because as she sat with Foreman and Chase as they listened to House detail the latest patient, Shirley Racefield. He had blood that was oozing from his nose and gums, extreme fatigue, and sudden weight loss. Foreman threw out a suggestion, as did Chase, but Cameron was half-asleep and didn't even hear them. She was leaning forward, about to pass out, when House's voice cut through the haze. "So!"

She jerked awake to find him right behind her, staring down at her. She shook herself awake. "I'm sorry, I haven't been getting very much sleep lately." She murmured. Chase glanced over at her. "I've been exercising a bit more than usual, so maybe that's it." She offered as an excuse.

"Ah. Well, maybe cut that out because I'd like to work with someone who can stay awake and be useful." House said, and Cameron had to look down to hide the sudden tears that came at her shame. She brought her hands to her face to rub at it, as if trying to wake herself up, instead catching the wetness at her eyes. She yawned widely as she looked up again. "What are your thoughts on the patient based off his symptoms, now?"

"Non-Hodgkin lymphoma?" She offered. "It fits the symptoms of weight loss and swollen nymph nodes, and the exhaustion." House stared at her, and Chase coughed.

"Chase threw that one out as well, so maybe it's worth looking into." House said. "Alright, Chase, draw some blood and check the white and red cell count. Cameron, get a CT scan and a lymphangiongram. Foreman, if he gets any more symptoms of it, do a biopsy."

Cameron rose, trying not to yawn again, and headed out of the room to do as House ordered. She was barely able to get through the rest of the day. She managed to get home and collapsed on her bed, passing out almost instantly.

March 10th

When she woke up the next morning, she was starving, but when she weighed herself, she was actually 135. She had no clue how that had happened, and she skipped breakfast. She also felt like crap, hit with the chills and a fever. She threw up three times within a half hour of being awake, and called in sick. She tried to eat something light an hour later, but within five minutes, it was in the toilet.

She lay shivering in bed for most of the day, and when seven rolled around, she got up, tried once again to eat some toast but it came right back up. She managed to drag herself out of bed to exercise, although not as long as she normally could. She passed out around nine, praying that she would feel better tomorrow.

March 11th

When Cameron woke up, she was feeling pretty much good, except for the occasional shiver. She stumbled into the bathroom and got on the scale. 133. She showered and dried her hair, styled it, and then headed into her room to get ready. She dropped her towel, stared at her body, examined it. Too big still. Her thighs were so big. Her stomach wasn't concave at all. She had no figure whatsoever.

When she was 114, she'd had a figure. She'd had a concave stomach and thin thighs and a figure and perfectly toned arms and looked good. Now she looked horrible. She glared at herself. Horrible. Ick. She was absolutely starving but she was going to ignore it. She'd eat tonight for sure.

But it wasn't that night she ate. She ate at lunch, unable to help it. She ended up buying orange chicken, spaghetti, and rice, scarfing it down, and then buying a slice of cheesecake, savouring the flavor. She was disgusted with herself, and needed to get it out. She would undo all that she'd managed to exercise and diet off. She didn't even know if she could exercise all this off. She began to panic.

It came upon her to throw up. She'd always thought that bulimics really were disgusting, but now, all the reasons that she'd originally thought gross suddenly seemed alright, ignoreable, and in fact, not even gross reasons at all. Part of her didn't know why she would have thought it gross, because she was desperate to get all that fattening food out.

She couldn't have even ordered healthy food, could she, no. She had to order the cheesecake and the orange chicken, so fattening. She bolted for the bathroom, locking the door and staring at the toilet for only a split second before forcing her first two fingers as far down her throat as she could. It took a couple of tries, but then it came back up, in wet splatters of food until she was throwing up nothing, no matter how many times she tried.

She sat back, trembling, tears in her eyes, one contact sliding out of place and causing her vision to blur even more. She'd thrown up. But she was empty. And she was glad about that. She got up, flushed the toilet, and rinsed her mouth out. Her eyes were puffy and red, as was her face.

She headed over to see how Shirley was doing, who had gotten worse. He'd gone through a stroke and they still couldn't pinpoint what was wrong. Chase was already there, and he glanced up when she entered, noting her shaking and red eyes. "Cameron, are you alright?" He asked. She nodded.

"Yeah, I think I'm still getting over whatever bug I had yesterday." She mumbled. "How's she doing?" She asked, gesturing at the patient.

"We're pretty sure she's got some neurological damage. She's lost muscle control in the left side of her face." Cameron glanced over and saw the way her mouth drooped on the left side, the competely lax expression as compared to the right one, which was nowhere near as lax as she slept. "We're going to run some tests on her when she wakes up." Chase added.

"Yeah." Cameron said. "Has House gotten a better idea of what it could be?"

"I think he might. He's in his office right now, going through some of his medical journals. Foreman's gonna do a biopsy in an hour if she hasn't woken up by then. He's going to do a biopsy anyways but if she doesn't wake up soon, we're going to see what damage has been done to the brain."

Cameron nodded. "Do you want me to stay so you can take a break?"

"Nah, maybe you can help out House with some of those journals." Chase answered. "I've only been here for about twenty minutes."

Cameron nodded again, headed over to House's office, and entered. "Hi. Chase said you had an idea of what's going on with Shirley?"

"I think that she has Waldenström macroglobulinemia. We'll run some more tests, like Chase said, and Foreman will do the biopsy to confirm it. But if I'm right, we'll send her on her way. Granted, she's got all of probably five years to live."

"Aren't there any medicines or treatments that can extend that?" Cameron asked. "Or is there nothing that can be done for her?"

House glanced over at her. "Your breath stinks. Did you throw up?" He wrinkled his nose. "And yeah, there is, but it doesn't always work." He grabbed another journal and started flipping through it.

"Uh, yeah. I don't think I'm completely over this bug." Cameron muttered. "I'll be fine tomorrow, hopefully." She touched her stomach, which was hungry again, since it had been emptied of the food she'd eaten to placate it. It was her own damn fault for eating all that fattening food. She'd eat something healthy, something small tonight.

House glanced at her. "Well, I hope you are feeling better tomorrow." He said. "Try that journal, it's got a better chance of information on the disease." He tossed her a thick journal and she caught it, began to flip through it.

When she got home, she made a dinner of spaghetti and ate it as slowly as she could, and although she hadn't made very much, she managed to eat only half of it. She headed to the scale in the bathroom and undressed in a hurry. 132.5. Better. But still not 130. Close though. If she didn't eat for the next day or so, and did her exercises, maybe she'd get there soon.

She headed into the bedroom to start her exercises, more vigorously than ever. When she fell asleep that night, her dreams were unsettling dreams of gorging on food, of running frantically from an unseen horror, of House watching her critically as she collapsed, panting. She jerked awake in the middle of the night and was unable to sleep again, and instead, headed to the treadmill to run, as if she could run from her dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

Hey guys, sorry I haven't had a lot of time on my hand to really write. I got back to school after winter break, and let me tell you, maintaining straight As in college is rough. I don't think I'm even going to make it this semester. So. I don't really have free time until probably after school ends. I should be able to write hopefully then, but as of now, I am on temporary hiatus. Sorry to everyone who wanted to see where this is going. I will work on it, though. I promise. Just… not for a bit.


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